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A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

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Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#31

Post by helios_invictus »

Reading the 3 categories the judge put together, I'd have to say that the win does go to Sales. Economic Collapse: Kelly, the "economy" is doing just fine if you're in an upper percentile. For most people the economy is not working for them. Global Environmental Disaster: Sales, many signs point to more chaotic and worse environmental conditions to come. The War Between Rich and Poor: Much like question one this one is occurring, and it's getting worse not better. Economic inequality has increased and the trend is increasing.

Sale is correct on many points, his timeline just isn't accurate.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#32

Post by hawkice »

Nition wrote: post #15
blakesterz wrote: post #2

It was an interesting read anyways. The answer should be obvious... "The very fact that his book exists, he wrote, is the equivalent of tossing his cards face down on the table: If society had in fact collapsed, there would be no books, self-published or not. “So let me just admit that I was wrong,” he wrote. “But ... not by much. And not totally.” "

The bet wasn't that society would collapse, but that it would be "not even close" to collapse, which is a much more difficult question to answer.

The stakes were so extreme that it _is_ pretty easy to answer. Sure, there have been economic cycles, but the bet was whether the dollar is _worthless_ -- we are so far from it the Fed still can't reliably meet their inflation targets. A rebellion of the rich against the monied? Surely you're joking. And while global warming marches on, the 'significant number of environmental collapses' haven't happened, and we know we aren't close because I'm not sure even one environment has collapsed (damage ain't the same as collapse, folks).

It wasn't close. It isn't hard to tell that it wasn't close. Let's not give this doomsayer more credit than he's earned -- and he was completely wrong.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#33

Post by bonoboTP »

8ytecoder wrote: post #11
notsureaboutpg wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's such a silly way of measuring the answer. Books existed in the Middle Ages (e.g. Dark Ages, yes people will say we don't call it that anymore but still). Tech could have regressed our society in manifold ways and destroyed and rotted away many many institutions and there would still be books. They should have a measure by which to mark this bet's conclusion. Arguments can be made for both sides.

Orthagonal and nitpick. I couldn't parse the "e.g., Dark Ages" part until I realised what you may have meant is "i.e., Dark Ages". I read "e.g.," as "for example" and "i.e.," as "that is". (English is not my first language)

The "Dark Ages" usually refers to a subset of the Middle Ages, the earlier part, so "for example" worked for me and I only stopped and realized that ie was meant after reading your comment.

This is one of those stupid things about English that make life for pupils harder for no reason. In most languages the abbreviation is straightforward and based on the actual language. (Also spelling bees don't exist in most other places). Entire classes of error possibilities are just made up for no good reason in English.

(also, it's orthogonal, not orthagonal)

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#36

Post by sli »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #21
devlopr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious to hear a bit more. Who are these men? The non-tech jocks? There must be non-tech females left? Are you speaking about the average looking male group who can't get tinder hookups?

Guessing they're on about incels. Definitely becoming a major issue now. I think they're generally gross and it's obvious why they're single, but there has to be an underlying reason for the trend.

It's a form of self-harm. They seek it out. It exists for many of the same reasons as other forms of self-harm. Trying to pin down a specific cause is probably not the best approach as it's likely pretty specific to individual men.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#37

Post by glenstein »

A comment I made on this when it was posted a few days ago:

I am surprised that this was regarded as a close decision. I guess a lot depends on wording, but when one person is predicting the dollar will be worthless, and the person in the role of judge claims that given global economic uncertainty, it's a "close" question, I wonder if they're just saying that to be diplomatic.

Obviously there's a lot of uncertainty, but one way to think about it, is that it can get so much worse than it currently is. And it seems like the predictions being wagered over were pointing to the "so much worse". I think the same holds for the environment, and for the proposed war between rich and poor.

I get the temptation to treat those as close, because there's tensions that you could imagine leading to some worst case scenarios. And so one might want to acknowledge the tension, and you want to put that acknowledgment into some sort of partial credit. But I think that way of thinking gets all confused and hair splitty, and comes from a place of thinking everything's a trick question, and not wanting to be perceived as overlooking nuances.

Anyhow, credit to all parties involved for formalizing their discussion and getting a bet out of it. I think those kinds of conversations are valuable, and I think it helps to get people thinking about what it takes for beliefs to be true over the long run.

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#38

Post by joe_the_user »

helios_invictus wrote: post #31

Reading the 3 categories the judge put together, I'd have to say that the win does go to Sales. Economic Collapse: Kelly, the "economy" is doing just fine if you're in an upper percentile. For most people the economy is not working for them. Global Environmental Disaster: Sales, many signs point to more chaotic and worse environmental conditions to come. The War Between Rich and Poor: Much like question one this one…

The problem with the broad trend prediction format is you wind-up with binaries and predicting a 1 or a 0 is easy.

Economy - "Good or bad"

Environment - "Good or bad"

Wealth distribution - "Good or bad".

If you're betting, someone has to get 2 or more out of 3. But that could be anyone, including complete idiots. So this doesn't by itself tell you anything.

Most of the "bad" would be vaguely "left" positions but they could vary from the left of the NYT to any number of extreme positions as well as including general pessimists.

So at this level, "could be anything".

Re: A 25-Year-Old Bet Comes Due: Has Tech Destroyed Society?

#40

Post by renewiltord »

gumby wrote: post #17
ronnier wrote: post #10

It's definitely impacted some more than others. There's now an entire class of men who can no longer have romantic relationships because they've been cast out of the dating market as technology altered dating dynamics not in their favor. For these men, their world, their society is destroyed.

Wait, what??? I have never heard about such a phenomenon.

It's a common belief among America's hikikomori who attempt to explain all of life through the lens of sexual contact or romantic intimacy. It's some sort of pop sociology that is highly appealing to these people for no real reason.

The median number of lifetime sexual partners for men and women is fairly steady over the last twenty years: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/n.htm#numberlif...

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